Defining Performance Outcomes Responding to Community Risk

Jim White, CFO, EFO, MiFireE Fire Chief (Ret.) Winter Park, Florida Director – Fire Rescue Institute Valencia College School of Public Safety Orlando, Florida

Baseline Performance must be: Any process of continuous improvement requires the establishment of a baseline measurement. Baseline Performance must be: Clearly Defined Easily Measureable Mean Something Offer an Opportunity for Reasonable Improvement

What Baseline Performances are you measuring? Response Time: Alarm Handling Turn Out Travel Total Water on the Fire ROSC Return to Service Unit Reliability

Performances that are defined should include an anticipated outcome … Right? How do you know without including a very specific anticipated outcome.

What are you measuring?

Outputs: Outcomes: Programs, Activities, and Services Offered How often: Fires EMS Effective Response Force How fast: Response times Community Expectations: Fire Loss Controlled Return of Spontaneous Circulation Credibility Cost Efficient

What are you measuring?

Are we REALLY measuring what the community expects of us?

So how do we measure the OUTCOME performance? Success?

Let’s start with fire protection … How do you currently measure success?

STRUCTURE FIRE - MODERATE RISK Community feedback Similar expectation for other services Ask the tough questions and then listen to the responses and use them to set goals Measure past successes and failures … what happened and why?

EMERGENCY MEDICAL INCIDENT - MODERATE RISK Clearly define YOUR agency’s role in EMS Include the health care community in your outcome measurement Measure patient outcomes, consistently! The goals and objectives should reflect what YOUR agency can do to change the outcome.

TECHNICAL RESCUE & HAZARDOUS MATERIALS - MODERATE RISK Safety of the operation Time to establish YOUR level of service Effective response force, and equipment, placed into service. Limited data sets … measure how you performed and did you meet the expectations.

So … What does success look like? FIRE – Do you measure ability of the effective response force to control the fire to the area of involvement found upon arrival? EMS – Do you measure compliance with adopted protocols? Patient discharged? Time to procedures?

So … While measuring your system’s performance requires calculating time, and measuring it against a benchmark … Measurements of success are not always about time. To be completely successful in meeting your community’s expectations, you must measure your success in meeting those outcomes people expect.

Defining Performance Outcomes Responding to Community Risk